Barley’s Biscuit Lloyds Coppice - Golden Dragons

Here is a snippet of my first edit of Barley’s Biscuit Lloyds Coppice - Golden Dragons:

(1) The two Border-Collie dogs, Barley and Basil, sat patiently on the curb waiting for their human friend Mick to cross the Jackfield bridge. Their black, white and light brown patchy coats shimmering in the light breeze. Mick walked about half way across the bridge, but stopped to look at the River Severn. Just ahead, in the distance along the river towards Bridgnorth, he would normally see the white water rapids – that’s very fast flowing water in the river at Jackfield just outside the Black Swan pub. Today however, there were none.

(2) It had been raining on and off quite heavily at times for three or four days around most of the country, and all of the water ran into the rivers swelling them up to double their normal size. The colour of the River Severn that day was a mixture of orange, brown and grey looking like a fluid wriggly stick of multicoloured seaside rock. The bottom of the river was churned up by the large amount of water and a lot of mud washed into the river from the banks and surrounding hillsides – all of these things hid the rapids. The river’s in spate. Mick thought to himself. Today though, the rain stopped and was replaced by hazy sunshine and light winds.

(3) “It may well be a bit muddy, but it will be perfect for a walk around Lloyds Coppice.” Mick said to the two dogs. The Jackfield bridge – or free bridge – as local people call it, links a lovely little village called Jackfield to the town of Ironbridge. The dogs waited on the Ironbridge side. It is quite a busy junction of roads there and can be dangerous. “Away.” Mick said, as he got closer to the dogs and checked that it was safe to cross the road. The two dogs quickly scampered across the road and onto the safety of Ye Olde Robin Hood Inn car park.